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Laura Carpenter, left, and Victoria Holda mourned the victims on the Northern Illinois University campus on Friday.

DeKALB, Ill. — The day after five students were gunned down in an afternoon science class on the campus of Northern Illinois University here, survivors struggled to manage their grief as the authorities released more details about the shooting and the gunman.

The few students who remained on campus began to formally memorialize the dead, and a silence fell over the university, broken only by the hum of news trucks and the activity of scattered police officers.

A Roman Catholic chapel filled up at noon for a Mass and memorial for the victims, but the campus emptied out as the day wore on. “Just get things normal — that would be nice,” said Jenna Mueth, a junior from Mascoutah, Ill., walking across the largely deserted campus about 4 p.m. in flip-flops despite the 14-degree weather and deep snow.

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, who visited the campus on Friday, said: “In an institution devoted to learning, we saw yesterday an act of unthinkable horror. If there was a way to stop this attack before it happened, we will find it.”

In a grisly echo of another campus rampage last year, a Green Bay, Wis., gun dealer who sold a handgun to the Virginia Tech gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, said on his Web site, topglock .com, that his business also sold firearm accessories to the gunman in the Northern Illinois shootings, Steve P. Kazmierczak.

The dealer, Eric Thompson, said Mr. Kazmierczak ordered two Glock magazines and a holster for a Glock handgun on Feb. 4 and received them on Tuesday.

“Today’s discovery is doubly difficult for us,” Mr. Thompson said, “as we are still saddened by the Virginia Tech murders. As a father, my heart breaks for the parents who lost a son or daughter to the acts of these madmen.”

Mr. Kazmierczak’s arsenal included a Remington 12-gauge shotgun and a Glock 9 millimeter handgun bought legally last Saturday from a Champaign, Ill., gun dealer, and two other handguns that federal officials said had been bought earlier from the same store.

Kevin Cronin, an official of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that as far as the agency knew as of Friday, Mr. Kazmierczak would not have been prohibited from buying any of the guns.

The authorities said Mr. Kazmierczak, 27, who graduated from Northern Illinois and had been a graduate student in sociology at the University of Illinois, had concealed the shotgun in a guitar case, and entered the lecture hall with three smaller handguns on a belt hidden under his overcoat.

As of Friday afternoon, it appeared that Mr. Kazmierczak had left no note, no indication of a motive, and had no known relationship with anyone in the science class, officials said.

Mr. Kazmierczak carried out his attack in a matter of seconds, the authorities said, even with stopping to reload his shotgun, ultimately shooting 16 students and the teacher, all between the ages of 18 and 32.

He began to fire at 3:06 p.m., and by the time 10 campus security officers arrived on the scene, within a minute and a half, he was done.

Doctors in the emergency room of the community hospital here said they saw injuries consistent with students being surprised by fire — shots to the head and torso — and with students trying to run away, with wounds on their backs.

Donald Grady, chief of the Northern Illinois University Police, said 48 casings and six shotgun shells were recovered at the scene. Meghan Murphy, 22, a junior psychology major, was in the classroom when Mr. Kazmierczak started shooting.

“It looked like a theatrical thing the way he walked onto the stage,” she said. “But then people were saying: ‘He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!’ ”

Ms. Murphy said she saw bullets whir past her, and saw smoke. She tried to run for the exits, but was twice knocked down in a stampede.

“On the way out, people couldn’t believe what they had seen,” she said. “People were saying: ‘Did that really happen? Was he really shooting?’ ”

The authorities on Friday identified the dead as Daniel Parmenter, 20; Catalina Garcia, 20; Ryanne Mace, 19; Julianna Gehant, 32; and Gayle Dubowski, 20. All were from Illinois.

Mr. Parmenter sat in the front of the classroom, and was described by his Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers as outgoing and athletic. He was sitting next to his girlfriend, who was also shot.

Ms. Garcia wanted to be a teacher. Ms. Mace had updated her MySpace.com page earlier in the day. It said, “Happy Valentine’s Day Everybody!”

Ms. Dubowski had recently worked as a counselor at a church camp. Ms. Gehant served 12 years in the Army Corps of Engineers as a carpenter, and her job included building schools overseas.

Chief Grady said that Mr. Kazmierczak had recently stopped taking some sort of medication and was said to have been acting erratically. The chief, however, offered no details on the medication, why it was being taken, or what the earlier disturbing behavior was.

Ms. Mueth said she was frightened and shocked by the events. She said she and her friends in the Neptune West dorm were planning to be together for support. “We’re planning to watch a movie tonight,” she said.

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